


The Time I Accidentally Sold One Of My Friends Into Eternal Slavery In The Service Of An Ancient God, And To A Lesser Extent, Archery

by hooliganism



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humor, I AM A SERIOUS AUTHOR I SWEAR, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Oh My God, Parody, Please Don't Hate Me, hot damn, i guess, i wrote this on three hours of sleep and a lot of uptown funk, scholarship essay, seriously, this is the most abridged version of the well of sorrows ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3843919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooliganism/pseuds/hooliganism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an actual essay that I wrote for an actual scholarship. Please don't hate me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time I Accidentally Sold One Of My Friends Into Eternal Slavery In The Service Of An Ancient God, And To A Lesser Extent, Archery

**Author's Note:**

> Before we roll, I want to tell you a little about the Daniel Joseph Mossburg Academic Scholarship Honoring Scholarly Achievement, Outstanding School Spirit, Amazing Athletic Accomplishments, And To A Lesser Extent, Archery.
> 
> The requirements for the essay are:  
> "Must be between 2 and 10000000000000000000000 words  
> Must be a current senior at my school  
> Be a human being (preferably alive)  
> Write an essay."
> 
> Basically, if you write something that makes Daniel laugh, you get $250. I said, "What the hell," and churned out this.

**The Time I Accidentally Sold One Of My Friends Into Eternal Slavery In The Service Of An Ancient God, And To A Lesser Extent, Archery**

 

I didn’t ask to be chosen; it just happened. I was in the right place at the right time (or vice versa, depending on who you ask) and suddenly became the leader of a rebellious organization called the Inquisition, trekking through the country with my band of misfits, helping folk in trouble. (That last part is kind of a lie. We were sealing extra-dimensional rifts in the fabric of reality caused by a certain power-mad god-wannabe, but ‘helping folk in trouble’ is a lot easier to say).

My ‘band of misfits’ calls themselves the Inquisition. If you’re fed up with the civil war between the High Church and the Circle of Mages, we’re where you go. There are nine close friends of mine, but only a couple of them are important in this story: Solas and Morrigan mostly, and also Varric and Cassandra. I’ll try and make the intro quick, so we can get to the ‘I-accidentally-sold-my-friend’ part.

Morrigan is a witch. Literally a witch, raised in the forest by an evil sorceress called Flemeth who was going to sacrifice Morrigan’s soul to gods-knows-what in order to stay young. Morrigan isn’t a terrible person- I actually like her, when she isn’t waxing poetic about elvish history.

Solas is actually an elf, a pointy-eared homeless mage who knows quite a bit about elvish history because he experienced most of it. He’s bald as an egg and likes to speak in iambic pentameter. It’s really annoying. But he’s a decent mage, as they go.

Varric is a dwarf, mostly known for financing dumb get-rich-quick schemes and writing a book called Hard in Hightown. It’s exactly what it sounds like. He’s rich and funny, which is why I keep him around. Also he makes Solas really angry.

Cassandra is a knight from a corrupt organization. When she realized that her order was rotting from the inside and too far gone to save, she quit and formed the Inquisition. Excellent fighter, and she has a really cool accent.

So one time, we were tracking down this ancient well that is supposed to give whoever drinks from it the power to control dragons. This was a much-needed power, because Corypheus was raising a steroid-pumped dragon army against us.

However, it wasn’t as simple as lowering a bucket on a rope and scooping up some fluid. When we reached the temple where the well was located, we encountered a small problem in the form of the temple’s guardian.

He called himself Abelas and asked us something in elvish, trying to be all fancy and ‘You shall not pass’ with us. Before you could say “I fought three dragons today, come at me bro,” Solas put his dumb bald head to use and responded in the same old language. (He doesn’t get that nobody cares that he can speak elvish. Even Dalish elves, who pride themselves on keeping the ‘old ways,’ don’t speak it anymore.)

I understood some elvish, but not enough to translate what was said. From their facial expressions, I got the general gist of it. “You gotta leave, bro,” Abelas’ face said.

“Sorry dude,” Solas’ face responded, “but we really need to get to the well inside and gain its magical powers to save reality and stuff."

“Answer is still no,” Abelas’ face said stubbornly.

“We’ll fight you if we have to,” Solas’ face replied.

“What are you gonna do, stab me?” asked Abelas’ face.

“Yes,” my face said, and I stabbed him.

Unfortunately, it takes more than a knife-tickle to down an ancient elven temple guardian. Four extremely violent and bloody minutes later, we triumphantly kicked down the temple door. “NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!” I bellowed.

Morrigan and Solas were immediately taken with the ancient temple-things, like statues and engraving and other things that were probably important a couple thousand years ago. Varric started looking for things to steal, and Cassandra started looking for things to kill.

The Well of Sorrows wasn’t hard to spot- it was huge, more like a Lake of Sorrows. The water was clear, but it looked like there were people in it- ghosts, maybe. Abelas apparently was a quick healer, and decided it would be easier to talk us down than fight us. “This Well is the collection of all of Elven history,” he intoned solemnly, “the gift of Mythal herself to her people.”

“I will drink from the well,” Morrigan said. “I know the most about Elven history, and I would be able to put this knowledge to use to defeat Corypheus.”

“Actually, I would be better at it than you, but I wouldn’t touch that Well for all the gold in the world,” Solas put in.

“Hold up a minute, Mor,” I said. “I’m the leader here. I have the magical superpowers. If anyone’s going to drink from the Well, it’s gonna be me.”

“It should really be me,” Morrigan snapped.

“Nope, me,” I shot back.

“Me.”

“Me!”

We continued like that for a little bit, before Solas finally said, “Inquisitor, if I were you, I’d let Morrigan drink.”

Solas’ advice has a failure rate of 75%- that is to say, he usually gives terrible advice, but there’s a one-in-four chance that he has a good idea. I’d already taken his advice three times that day (much to the regret of everyone), so I figured, why not go for broke?

“Fine, Morrigan, drink the water. Don’t complain to me when you get tapeworms.”

Morrigan stepped into the Well. Water moved around her like it was alive. She cupped her hands, scooped up some water, and drank.

The results were immediate. There was a light like a small sun exploding and a noise like a hundred thousand people simultaneously shouting ‘Turn down for what!?’

When my eyes recovered from the bright light, the water in the well was all gone, and Morrigan was lying, unconscious, at the bottom. She slowly sat up, blinking, and said “I need a drink.”

Abelas was shouting something at us, but frankly I’d had a long day and I didn’t care if the side effects could cause hallucinations, insomnia, feelings of anger and decreased sex drive. I wanted out. I hauled the dizzy Morrigan out of the well, slung her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and made for the exit.

I heard Solas talking to Abelas again, and caught the phrase ‘fen’harel.’ Solas had taught me some elvish phrases, so I recognized the name. Fen’harel, the Dread Wolf, was some ancient elven god of mischief. I initially thought that Abelas was saying something like, “I hope the Dread Wolf devours your soul and chews up your shoes,” and Solas was replying with, “I hope the Dread Wolf eats your ugly face.” Later events would reveal this to be plot-sensitive information and make me wish I had paid closer attention to their conversation, but alas, I didn’t.

When were were relatively clear of the temple and Varric had pocketed everything pocketable, I finally put Morrigan down. She seemed more alert than she had been a while ago, and she began casting some sort of spell.

Cassandra (whose instincts are sharper than her insults) saw it first- a dragon descending out of the sky towards us. We drew out weapons- me my broadaxe, Cassandra her sword, Varric the crossbow that he calls Bianca- and stood at the ready. But Morrigan gestured for us to put our weapons away.

The dragon landed some twenty feet away from us. Morrigan walked towards it, her hands outstretched, murmuring something. She walked up to the dragon, touched it, and stood still for a moment. Without warning, the dragon flew away.

“He will come when I call,” Morrigan informed us. “But only once. Once will have to be enough to defeat Corypheus’ Archdemon dragon.”

“One chance is all we’ll need,” I replied grimly. I had lost everything to Corypheus, and I was going to take him down if it killed me (which it probably would).

When we got back to HQ, Solas approached me. I groaned- I’d made it pretty clear that I didn’t return his weird bald affections. Before he could say anything approaching “Bear my children,” I saw my chance and I took it.

“Why did you tell me to let Morrigan drink from the Well?” I asked him.

He pinned me with a gaze from his slitted eyes. “Because whoever drinks from the Well is bound eternally to Mythal.”

“... Mythal? The old elven god?”

“The very same.”

“But you said that you didn’t believe in the elven pantheon.”

He sighed- he’d explained this to me a couple of different times, mostly because I drink to forget what Solas tells me. “I don’t believe they were gods, but there was certainly something. Powerful kings and queens, perhaps, or spirits. Whatever they were, their power is certainly real, and now Morrigan is bound to Mythal forever. She no longer has free will. Anything she does will be the will of the goddess.”

“So… I accidentally bound her into the service of an ancient elven god?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“What is Mythal even the goddess of, anyway?” I wondered.

“Archery,” Solas replied.

 

 


End file.
